TWO DIANAS IN ALASKA 27 



scheme is to make out the weak-minded members to 

 be profoundly learned people with one or two fads. 



Cecily set herself down as twenty-eight, and was 

 immensely glad of the opportunity, and I wrote " full 

 age " on my paper, forgetting that I was not at last 

 filling in a matrimonial certificate. We gave Ralph 

 as the only imbecile of the quartet, agreeing that if 

 he wasn't one he ought to be, after that near thing 

 in elopements with the coming-on lady on the look- 

 out for an affinity. 



April the 3rd saw us taking up our quarters in 

 the state-rooms secured, and with winds in varying 

 moods the Nome City steamed off on her northward 

 voyage, a voyage that has no parallel in any clime. 



Except that the sea was not always peaceful the trip 

 was like an excursion up some great river, for always 

 the beautiful peaks of distant ranges were in sight to 

 charm us with their myriad-tinted glories, and the 

 dark green of the firs and cedars fringed the country 

 to the very edge of the sea. For a thousand miles 

 there is but a half-day of open water. In and out 

 among the islands dotting her path, down straits so 

 narrow that at times a well-thrown stone would strike 

 either shore, the Nome City threaded her way. One 

 fears illimitable tragedy as, in the hours of darkness, 

 our ship steams nonchalantly along, no lighthouses 

 to guide her, come what, come may, through rock- 

 strewn channels, hardly slowing up for fogs. Indeed, 

 the only difference these maritime horrors made to 

 our complete contentment was the constant shrieking 

 of the horn. 



